Dearest Vicky, Darling Fritz (30 page)

Bismarck reminded the doctors that they were dealing with no ordinary patient; the Crown Prince’s life was too precious to be considered like that of an ordinary man.
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Though Vicky hardly knew who or what to believe, her determination to look on the bright side was no weak-kneed attempt to avoid facing up to the worst that could happen. Fritz was already weakened by years of bitterness and frustration, and she knew she owed it to him to maintain a façade of optimism. If he believed his illness was fatal, he would turn his face to the wall. As long as she showed him there was still hope, he might recover.

From the start she unequivocally championed Mackenzie, but she overlooked his faults. He had left Harley Street in such a hurry that he did not bring his own surgical instruments and had to have them sent to Potsdam later; before examining his patient for the first time he had to buy a pair of forceps made to an unfamiliar French pattern. Moreover he was too sanguine; when the German doctors told the Crown Princess the disease was in its early stages and little harm had been done, Mackenzie promised a complete cure within weeks, subject to favourable conditions. It was imprudent to offer such a hostage to fortune. At the same time he did not inspire trust in others. Few went as far as Willy and Herbert Bismarck, who both called him a deliberate fraud, but some of the leading liberals had their doubts. Roggenbach declared he was a shrewd Englishman merely out to advertise himself by having the Crown Prince as his patient.

That summer Queen Victoria was to celebrate her Jubilee in London, and to Vicky it was unthinkable that she and Fritz should not be there to take part. As the Queen’s eldest grandchild, Willy assumed he would also be invited, and if his father was unwell then he would undoubtedly be the Kaiser’s representative. In fact he did not receive an invitation until April, two months before the festivities, and the Queen had seriously considered not sending him one at all as she had been so angered by his recent attitude, particularly with regard to the Battenbergs. It took all Vicky’s powers of persuasion to rectify this situation, for while she admitted that he had behaved badly to them all, for him to be passed over would only increase his sense of grievance, as well as give his toadies in Berlin with another reason to ‘use’ him against them. Moreover a few days in England might help to counteract some of the harm that his Russian visit had caused. Whether he really wished to go for reasons of prestige or family devotion was debatable. On a hunting expedition with his friend Eulenburg early in June, he said bitterly that it was ‘high time the old woman [Queen Victoria] died’, and that she caused trouble, ‘more than one would think.’
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Part of the persistent anti-Battenberg feud was the doing of Fritz’s sister the Grand Duchess of Baden. She had come to Berlin in mid-March to help with their father’s birthday festivities and stayed afterwards, partly to take care of him after Empress Augusta’s departure for Baden, partly as she wanted to consult with her brother’s doctors and act as unofficial press agent for the court. Vicky was angry that so many details about her husband’s illness were appearing in the papers, and annoyed with her sister-in-law for telling reporters and journalists without asking or consulting them.

The Grand Duchess also sided with her parents in their fears that Moretta might still disgrace the Hohenzollerns by marrying Sandro. Empress Augusta had prepared a codicil to the Emperor’s will stating he would disown his granddaughter and his daughter-in-law if she did, and when she left for Baden she asked Louise to get his signature on the document. Vicky had learnt of these plans from Albedyll, and realized that she had to safeguard her financial position should the worst come to the worst. After the Prince Consort’s death she had asked Queen Victoria not to include her in her will, because she would be well provided for as the future Queen of Prussia. Now it seemed she might be left a disinherited widow at the mercy of an allpowerful son, and perhaps an elderly father-in-law, both of whom despised her. Queen Victoria appreciated the danger and immediately set up a small fund for Vicky and Moretta just in case.

Mackenzie suggested that the Crown Prince should come to England and be treated as a private patient in his London surgery. This suited the German doctors, as their patient’s absence would relieve them for a while of their responsibility for a valuable life, and place the burden more squarely on Mackenzie’s shoulders. Bismarck stood by the Kaiser who declared that he could not prevent his son, a grown man, from making such decisions. The only condition was that at least one German doctor, and preferably two, should accompany them and have a say as to how far the Crown Prince could be allowed to exert himself in the celebrations. Dr Wegner, the physician who had known him the longest, and Gerhardt’s assistant Dr Landgraf, were chosen. Wilhelm’s pride took a blow when he found he would be travelling to London as a mere guest among many other royalties and not as the sole Hohenzollern representative.

The news that they were going to England was greeted with indignation in Berlin. Few expected the ailing Kaiser to live another year; what if he should die while his heir was abroad – and in England of all places? What if the Crown Prince was to have a relapse and be too ill to return home? According to Gerhardt there were reasons to believe that either was probable. At the beginning of June the only symptoms of illness Fritz displayed were a sore throat, which was attributed to the constant removal of portions from the swelling, and almost total loss of voice. Already he was writing everything he wished to say on a pad of paper he carried everywhere, in the hope that his gruff whisper would improve with rest. Yet Vicky was so uneasy that on 1 June she spoke privately to Gerhardt, who warned her pessimistically that every time a part of the growth was removed it grew again; the tumour was suppurating, and the right vocal cord was starting to deteriorate. If this was the case, and if Mackenzie could not cure it, the only hope of saving the Crown Prince’s life lay in an operation, without the same chance of success that it would have had a fortnight before. He could only hope that Mackenzie was right and that his treatment would work, for they had ‘nothing else to suggest’.
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Torn between so many conflicting opinions, Vicky found it hard to suppress her anxiety and keep calm in front of her husband, but she was sure they were right to go to the Jubilee; ‘one cannot be kept a prisoner here, or be prevented from following a useful course by the fear of what might happen.’
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Vicky, Fritz and their three younger daughters left Berlin on 13 June, accompanied by the doctors, crossing the North Sea on the yacht
Victoria & Albert
and arriving at Sheerness two days later. With them they secretly took a collection of private papers for safe keeping at Buckingham Palace. At London they made for the Queen’s Hotel, Norwood, a better place to stay than the centre of the city where they would be in the thick of dust and heat. After a couple of quiet days there so Fritz could attend Mackenzie’s consulting-rooms for daily treatment, they moved to Buckingham Palace on 18 June for him to have two more days’ complete rest before the procession to Westminster Abbey.

Though he was spared the ordeals of state banquets and receptions, he had the chance to meet various fellow guests, among them Constantine, Crown Prince of Greece, who was to marry their daughter Sophie two years later, and their friend Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. They had much in common, as imperial heirs to two of the most reactionary powers in Europe, sharing liberal convictions that had brought them some degree of political isolation from their fathers’ governments. Rudolf had visited Berlin in March for the Emperor’s birthday festivities, to be entertained at the Neue Palais where he had spoken to his hosts on his distrust of Russian policies, particularly regarding Tsar Alexander III’s behaviour over Bulgaria. His fears of Russia’s expansionist ambitions and a desire to see the rest of Europe in strong mutual alliance impressed Fritz greatly, particularly as the Austrian ministers told him nothing and he too had to learn from secret meetings with his liberal allies. Rudolf’s distrust of Bismarck and Willy, five months his junior, bound the Crown Princes closer together.

Fritz awoke feeling reasonably fit and well on the morning of 21 June. Soon after 11 a.m. the procession began through London’s richly decorated streets, resplendent with triumphal arches, evergreens, flags and brightly-coloured drapery from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. Six cream-coloured horses pulled an open landau containing the Queen, accompanied by Vicky and Alix. Behind the coach and its escort of Indian cavalry came the Queen’s three surviving sons, five sons-in-law and nine grandsons. Mounted on a white charger, Fritz in his uniform of the Pomeranian Cuirassiers, his eagle-crested helmet, silver breastplate and Garter star glinting in the sunshine, towered above them all. The Londoners’ cheering broke into a deafening roar as he saluted, but the more keen-eyed among them noticed how thin he had become. After the service at the abbey, all the princes and princesses moved forward to the Queen to pay her homage. When she stepped down from the coronation chair at the end, Fritz happened to be standing near her and she embraced him impulsively, lingering on his arm in a moment of deep emotion.

His throat was still congested, and he had to continue daily treatment at Mackenzie’s surgery. On 28 June the doctor removed most of the growth, Wegner placed it in spirit in a sealed flask and sent it to Virchow at Berlin for examination. Nothing further could be proved about the disease, and the professor’s report could advance no new information. But away from the stifling atmosphere of Berlin, and surrounded by the reserved optimism of Vicky and the care of Mackenzie, Fritz felt he was on the way to recovery. Count Seckendorff reported that the Crown Prince was ‘doing well, and we all hope that Dr Mackenzie’s treatment will cure him entirely.’
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From the Norwood hotel they went to Osborne, where the weather was so fine that they spent most of the daylight hours outside. Fritz could relax in the shade of a cedar tree beside the tennis court, watching Vicky and Moretta play with Seckendorff and Rowland Prothero, son of the local rector. On hot days they went to the beach, where Fritz sat on the sand while Vicky bathed in the sea. Some forty years later their niece Marie of Edinburgh, by then Queen Dowager of Roumania, recalled her uncle and aunt as she saw them at Osborne when a girl of eleven. Pretending to bombard her and her sisters with sand and dry seaweed, Fritz ‘was jolly and yet one somehow felt he was condescending’, while Vicky’s forced gaiety was apparent; ‘her smile had something in it of sunshine when the weather is not really warm.’
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With hindsight Marie should have known what an anxious time it was for them.

Later that summer they moved to Scotland, staying in the Fife Arms at Braemar, and driving daily the few miles east to Balmoral. In the pure Scottish Highlands air Fritz became stronger and his voice steadily improved. He saw the Queen regularly and she was relieved to see how much better he looked. She did not know that Dr Mark Hovell, a senior surgeon at the throat hospital who was in attendance at Braemar, had examined him and was convinced the growth was malignant. While not so highly qualified or internationally famous as Mackenzie, Hovell was possibly the most skilled of all the doctors who attended the royal patient, but was brought in so late that Mackenzie was completely in command, in Britain at least, by the time he arrived. Lacking the self-assertive qualities and unguarded conviction that he was right, he said nothing for the time being.

However Mackenzie was still confident, and in August Fritz wrote that the doctor ‘considered my sufferings at an end even though I undoubtedly required special care with rest and silence for a long time in order to avoid a relapse.’
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At his request, on 7 September Queen Victoria invited Mackenzie to lunch at Balmoral, and knighted him afterwards in the drawing-room. After laying down the sword she asked Mackenzie searching questions about the case, and was disturbed that he could tell her so little, apart from his theory that the illness ‘had been long coming on and had been entirely neglected.’
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Meanwhile at Berlin the court, which had reluctantly allowed its heir to go to England for the Jubilee, was impatient for his return home, as the Kaiser was so weak that any mild infection or sudden heart attack could prove fatal. In liberal circles there were fears that Prince Wilhelm was gaining too much influence in state affairs during his father’s absence – not that the Crown Prince’s presence at Berlin had made much difference before – and wanted their champion to come back and take his rightful place in the capital. Vicky retorted that ‘it would be madness to spoil Fritz’s cure while he is in a fair way to recovery, but not well yet!’
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German opinion was the least of their troubles. On one of the last days in Scotland a row broke out between Seckendorff and the Chamberlain Count Radolinski. Like most other servants in the Crown Prince’s household, with the notable exception of Seckendorff, Radolinski’s attention came not from a desire to serve the Crown Prince and Princess, so much as to send Bismarck a secret weekly report on the activities of the household, and of the Crown Princess’s conversation in particular. In her anxiety she was completely deceived by his devoted manner, as was Fritz to some extent, until Seckendorff warned her to be on her guard. At the same time, he warned her that Radolinski was doing his best to get rid of him.

For some weeks it had been rumoured that the Crown Princess was accepting her husband’s imminent demise philosophically if not with impatience, seeing it as ‘the gateway to freedom’,
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so she could spend the rest of her life with Seckendorff. Bismarck, Holstein, even Fritz’s loyal confidant Friedberg and others, were said to be convinced that she would regard her widowhood as a kind of deliverance. During their sojourn in the Highlands Radolinski told Sir Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria’s secretary, that the Crown Princess and her chamberlain were having an affair, and that she had prevented the operation on her husband so she could keep him alive just long enough to sample the privileges of being Empress. Ponsonby knew better than to fall for such stories and cold-shouldered him after that but other tales, though equally false, were far more easily believed. Even the Queen, who had evidently forgotten the ‘Empress Brown’ tittle-tattle, was moved to ask her secretary why her daughter found it necessary to take Seckendorff everywhere with her.